Addressing health inequities for same sex attracted women in New South Wales, Australia, who use drugs

Abstract

ACON’s Alcohol and Other Drugs Program provides a Needle Syringe Program, peerbased harm reduction programs, drug education targeted at members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, and counselling services. The Lesbian Health Project works with lesbians and other same-sex attracted (SSA) women to improve their health and wellbeing through health promotion, peer education and community development programs as well as providing capacity development for mainstream service providers. In Australia, LGBT people have considerably higher rates of drug use than the general population. While there is considerable funding support from Australian state and federal governments for education interventions that address gay men’s drug use, it has been more difficult to address the needs of lesbians and other SSA women. Efforts to address lesbian health needs are hampered by lack of research, poor understanding of the issues by potential funding bodies, and the lack of a single defining health issue (such as HIV among gay men) around which to focus advocacy efforts. Equally problematic is the absence of consideration given to lesbians and SSA women in any Australian national and state health policies. In response to the consistently low uptake of both harm reduction and treatment services by SSA women, ACON has successfully advocated with a major funder of our drug and alcohol work to re-allocate some existing funding to produce SSAwomen specific drug resources, in the interests of equity. This project (currently under development) seeks to engage with networks of SSA women who use drugs and who do not normally access ACON’s drugs and alcohol services, to produce resources that ‘speak to’ their issues